August 14

“….it is My Father who glorifies Me, of whom you say, ‘He is our God’; but you have not known Him…” (John 8:54-55).

A great number of professed Christian believers know nothing at all about personal communion with God; their conversion has been by persuasion, not conviction of sin. The actual and experiential knowledge of God in Christ is eternal life (John 17:3) and this eternal life is available to us in this life; in fact, if we don’t get it in this life there is nowhere else that we can go to get it; no “halfway house” where we can be equipped with the knowledge and experience of God and His ways, that we are meant to acquire before we die.

Such a knowledge of God is the richest treasure that man can find; Paul considered all things to be a loss because of the much greater value of the knowledge of Christ Jesus the Lord (Philippians 3:8) and we may do the same. All things are of no value if there is no knowledge of God; they should all be freely sacrificed, or given up, in favour of “pressing on to the prize of the calling upwards of God in Christ Jesus” (Philippians 3:14); that was Paul’s goal.

To know God requires that we become like God, at least to some degree, for how can two walk together unless they be agreed (Amos 3:3)? Two who are wholly dissimilar cannot agree and two wholly unlike cannot communicate with each other or have fellowship with one another; that much is obvious. Therefore, knowledge of God will grow apace with our sanctification; as we allow God’s grace to do its work in us and, through our yieldedness and obedience, we will grow more in God’s likeness, more in harmony with His character, deeper in our knowledge of Him and thus, able to enjoy more of the experience of eternal life.

Be prepared though; as we move further into the deeper knowledge of Christ Jesus we expose ourselves to new and different attacks from our implacable enemy, but spiritual complacency is more deadly than anything the enemy can throw at us. If we are His, we must endure, for He has raised us up to sit in heavenly places together with Him (Ephesians 2:6) and, if we look ahead into the prophetic future we will see that “those with Him are called, and chosen and faithful” (Revelation 17:14). So that’s what we must be!